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No.2 of the seven school mysteries, the Misaki stairs. The day after your vivid dream, your classmate and friend Aoi went missing and was removed from existence. You and Nene, being the only ones with a memory of her went on a search for her.

With the help of Hanako and Kou, the four of you ventured into the boundary that would supposedly bring back Aoi and Kou's friends — however in the process, you, Nene and Kou were nearly brought to death. Yako, a fox who had transformed into a woman pulled your leg along and begged you to search for her lover's body parts. When her experiment to revive her loved one failed, she set out to turn you all into dolls.

By destroying her yorishiro, the source of her power — the four of you managed to save your forgotten friends, and Yako was forced to return to her original state; a moving inari statue. Yako rid of her crazed behaviour and is now calm, but is snarky and bites everyone often.

>>

"Don't you think Hanako has been acting strange lately?" You asked while slapping your palms against one other, Nene looked at you and briefly glanced at the ghost sitting on the windowsill quietly — an action that was abnormal for the male. Nene took note of the familiar paper resting in his hands as he stared at it intently, the lettering on the back reading 'July 7th, 1964.'

Nene opened her mouth to respond but yelped as a sudden pain engulfed her ankle, she looked down and watched you pluck a certain fox off of her leg. Nene eyed Yako with distaste, watching you drop the fox onto the floor. Yako scurried over to Hanako and perched herself onto his shoulder, both now looking at the paper.

"What are they even looking at?" You curiously asked, lowering your rag onto the floor and turning to your white haired friend. Nene didn't respond for a short while, only looking at your soft features that were once tense last week after the incident last week with your panic attack.

"Nene?" You blinked at the female who stared at you, Nene jumped but quickly calmed down — putting a finger to her chin as she recalled last weeks events.

<<

Kou looked at you and you tilted your head, "you mean you don't know?" Kou asked as you raised your brows at him, the blonde's eyes widened.

"No, what do you mean?" You asked, failing to notice Hanako swipe a photograph from Nene's hands from behind you and the blonde.

Kou hesitated before responding to you, "(L/N)? Right?" You nodded and leaned in closer to listen to what he had to say.

"There was once a powerful clan a couple of years ago, 1800'ish?" The blond squinted and tried to remember the details exactly, "I'll ask my brother later tonight."

     'That's a little more than a couple of years..' You thought to yourself as you sweat dropped, Kou continued on.

"There's a lot of different stories, but the most popular one.." Kou paused and tried to transfer his thoughts into sentences, you patiently waited.

"They say, that a witch bestowed a curse on them because of the sins they've committed by abusing their name and rank. Some say the curse forces them to reborn under a different surname and family because of how obsessed they were with the clan name and blood."

"And they say, that the clan's name was (L/N)." Kou stared intensely at your tense posture, but was shocked to see you smile.

"Well, it's just a story right? I mean, imagine all of the work into rearranging the universe if they had to be reborn under a different clan name and blood." You said before crouching and rummaging the boxes for an arm, "And besides, my last name is (L/N) so that contradicts the curse doesn't it?"

"Oh, I guess." Kou said as he watched you yelp at a creepy doll hidden under a clutter on objects.

"And even if I was related to that clan, that would mean I would have two curses." You said as you sighed, remembering your scaly curse.

Nene peered from her hunched position on the floor in front of the boxes at the paper laying in the box, the words 'July 7th, 1964' on one side. Nene leaned closer and pinched the corner of the paper, turning the paper around and was given a one second glance of a photograph of young children. The photograph was snatched out of her hands and Nene turned to see Hanako looking at the paper, he tucked it into his clothing after a little while and left Nene to herself — wondering what just happened.

>>

"It's a photograph, I found it last week when we were in the boundary but he took it away before I could see it." Nene whispered to you, she dumped her mop in the bucket. "You think it's his photograph?"

Your eyes widened and you looked at the white haired female, "his photograph?" You asked, repeating what she said.

Nene nodded quickly, "I mean, I can't think of any other reason he would have to take it away and he is pretty secretive about himself!" Nene whispered enthusiastically, you hummed in thought — agreeing with her shortly after.

Wiping your hands on your uniform, you approached Yako and Hanako. The male looked up and jumped, startled at your sudden appearance — he carefully put his photograph in his pocket and stared at you. "What were you guys looking at?"

"Nothing," Hanako briskly replied. You tilted your head confused and looked at Yako who suddenly found the stained glass window interesting, you huffed out and walked back to Nene who had watched the whole ordeal.

Before you could address the obvious lie he just told you, Kou barged into the washroom and Nene let out an "eep" and tried to get the blonde out of the females washroom but Hanako interrupted. "Now that we're all here,"

That piqued everyone's interest except Yako, who had stuck her nose in the air and walked out the washroom. Nene curiously looked over to Hanako, "what is it?"

"I need you all to meet me all after school tomorrow at the big tree in the practice garden tomorrow." He explained, you all tilted your heads and looked at each other.

Slowly turning your head back while questioning his previous sentence, "what do you mean by —" Hanako was no longer where he originally was, leaving the three of you alone in the washroom.

"What was that about?" Kou inquired, wrinkling his facial features in suspicion.

"Maybe another mission? Like the Misaki Stairs?" Nene suggested, you all left school wondering what would happen tomorrow.

>>

Sets of loud banging clashed on your front door as you slowly arose from your slumber, you flinched at the sudden noise and the sunlight that shone into your room from the window. Grumbling, you shoved your face into a pillow and pulled the blanket over you. You weren't going to get out of bed to open the door for some delivery guy, especially this early in the morning.

Eventually the knocks on your door stopped and you were back to drifting off to sleep — until you heard loud banging on your window, you jumped and looked out the window. Your eyes widened as you saw Nene, Aoi and Akane all standing out your window, all in their school uniform.

"(Y/N)! You're still not dressed? Hurry up!" Akane yelled, although the window was closed you could hear him loud and clear. Hopping off your mattress, you forced your blinds shut and scrambled to get ready.

After a solid five minutes, you were breathing heavily as you walked alongside your friends to school. "(Y/N), don't you have an alarm?" Akane questioned as he looked past Aoi to glance at messy hair, you nodded and waved your phone around.

"It turns out it died of battery so my alarm didn't go off." When you finished responding, Aoi and Nene narrowed their eyes at you.

"Don't tell me it's because —" Aoi started off but you coughed to interrupt her, she huffed and waved her hand at you.

"It was only an hour!" You said, trying to defend yourself. Nene only sighed and Akane looked confused.

"What was only for an hour?" Akane asked, your lips firmed into a straight line.

Nene opened her mouth, "she keeps doing her homework at night and then gets distracted by her phone."

Akane shook his head disapprovingly, "as a member of student council. I suggest you fix your schedule." Aoi and Nene nodded in agreement, you simply looked in his direction.

"Maybe if I stop blacking out during the day, I would be able to get more work done." You grumbled, kicking a rock in your path.

"You've been blacking out?" Akane questioned, "shouldn't you get that checked out?"

Nene nudged you in the side, Aoi answered for you. "She's just not getting enough sleep."

"Oh, I see." Akane said, it wasn't like a normal doctor could really explain your weird memories.

>>

You tapped your shoes against the dirt, grinding a stick into the ground. The leaves trickling down from the branches and landing on your head and uniform. The sky a bright blue and the sun still shining down on you, embracing and highlighting your features gently.

Patting as many leaves as you could from your skirt, you huffed and looked over to Nene and Kou who had decided to watch an ant's nest protruding from the ground. "What's taking Hanako so long to get here?"

"I've been here." A voice from above startled you all and you quickly backed away from the trunk, you stumbled over a root but luckily Nene was able to catch you before you fell.

"You guys didn't see me?" Hanako peered down from above, he was perched on a branch on the tree.

"If you were here already you should have told us!" Kou shouted, swinging his staff umbrella at the ghost's feet. Hanako yelped and slipped off, tumbling face first into the ground.

"Hanako, why did you want us to meet you here?" Nene asked, Hanako brushed the dirt off his pants and tipped his hat.

Hanako stalked towards the three of you, making you back up a little closer to Nene. He approached Kou and whispered something in his ear, the blonde male visibly flinched and stumbled away from Hanako.

"What?!" He shouted, you and Nene shared confused looks. Nene's head tilted as Kou trudged toward her and bowed 90 degrees.

"Senpai!" Kou shouted, Nene jumped at the sudden outburst. "I like you! Please accept my feelings!"

Nene stumbled backwards into your body and looked at you with wide eyes, "I've never been confessed to before!" She took deep breaths and tried to calm herself, "what do I say? He's not my type.."

Before you could actually respond with any advice she spun away from you and bowed at the blonde, "I-I'm sorry!" Your facial features wrinkled when you saw Hanako sigh in relief in the corner of your eye, why was he relieved that Kou would be heartbroken at the rejection?

However, when you walked up to the male who watched you approach him. Once you opened your mouth to ask what that was all about and why he wanted all of you here, a strange voice from behind alarmed you.

"Well we can't have that can we?"

author's note 22/03/20

chapter is really boring because it's mostly just information, i skipped the misaki stairs arc because i feel like it wouldn't really have any affect on how my story would turn out if i chose to include it as one whole chapter. but since this chapter is boring i'm probably not gonna release it by itself so i'll probably wait til i finish the next chapter. have a good night friends!

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